Bill Jacobson — Spritz3000

Bill Jacobson
(b. 1955) based in New York, New York

Chromogenic print mounted on museum board and framed
print, 20 × 22 in.; board, 28 × 30 in.
Edition of 9 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#7/9)

Part of Bill Jacobson’s 1999–2001 untitled series, (Untitled) #3591 (2000) extends his exploration of blurred focus into the landscape. While many works in the series depict the streets and architecture of New York City, here Jacobson turns his lens to an open, atmospheric scene, dissolving detail into soft gradations of tone. The image holds the same meditative quality as his urban views, evoking memory and impermanence, yet in this instance, the haze and distance suggest a more expansive, unbound terrain, inviting reflection on place beyond the city’s edges.

Analog silver gelatin print mounted to museum board and framed
print, 16 × 20 in.; board, 23 3/4 × 27 3/4 in.
Edition of 7 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#2/7)

In Bill Jacobson’s when is a place series, works such as #448 (2020) and #402 frame thresholds where geometry meets atmosphere—edges of buildings, streets, and fields that hold a pause in time. Crisp focus replaces the blur of his earlier work, yet the images retain a contemplative stillness. Sequential numbering anchors each photograph within the continuum of the series while avoiding prescriptive titles, allowing meaning to remain open. The series title itself prompts reflection on place as not only a fixed location, but also a moment, experience, or state of mind.

Analog silver gelatin print mounted to museum board and framed
print, 16 × 20 in.; board, 23 3/4 × 27 3/4 in.
Edition of 7 plus 2 artist’s proofs (#1/7)

Bill Jacobson (b. 1955, Norwich, Connecticut) is a photographer whose work probes memory, perception, and the experience of time. He first came to prominence in the 1990s with a series of out-of-focus portraits and landscapes that evoke themes of absence, longing, and impermanence. Since the mid-2000s, Jacobson’s work has shifted toward sharply rendered imagery, most notably in his ongoing Place (Series) photographs, which distill architectural and built environments into formal, geometric compositions that suggest both intimacy and distance. His practice spans portraiture, landscape, and abstraction, consistently returning to questions about how we inhabit space—both physically and emotionally. Jacobson’s photographs have been exhibited internationally and are held in numerous public collections, including the Guggenheim Museum, Whitney Museum of American Art, and Metropolitan Museum of Art. Recent exhibitions include When Is a Place at the Montana Museum of Art & Culture, Missoula; Bill Jacobson: Figure, Ground at Gitterman Gallery, New York; and Bill Jacobson: Place (Series) at Clamp, New York. He lives and works in New York City and rural upstate New York.